Once
by in2the woods
Summary: Hazel is a young witch who wants to protect her mother's garden. Peter is the Baker's Son who is a mathematician . Prequel to Into the Woods and why the witch resents the Baker's Father so much. Could be based on film or play.
1. Prologue

_Once upon a time… In a far off kingdom… there lay a small village at the edge of the Wood…_

_And in this village… There lived a Baker and his son… A Witch and her daughter_

The Young Witch was named Hazel and lived with her mother. Her father had died in a snowy mountain range when Hazel was only two. So she was homeschooled and lived a very sheltered life. Her mother taught her the ways of witches. She explained how to place a curse and how to reverse a curse. She taught her how to make swift entrances and exits and scare people simply by saying "Hi".

However the most important part of witchery that Hazel was taught, she learned on her 10th birthday.

"Hazel", her mother called to her, "Come here."

Hazel dropped the book she was reading. She stood up and walked over to her mother.

Her mother continued, "Hazel, there is something very important I have to tell you." Hazel simply nodded.

"You see Hazel, each clan of witches has a sacred symbol. There is a separate punishment for each different clan if the symbol is lost. Our symbols are those special beans out here in our garden. They glow green during the day and orange during the night. Do you know what that is symbolic of?"

Hazel shook her head. "It means that if they are ever lost to us, the beautiful streak that our family's ladies has always had will be lost. The curse of ugliness will come upon you and all your descendants if **anyone, **even us, takes them away from that brick wall surrounding our garden. Make wise choices."

Hazel nodded firmly. "I understand Mother. And I will do my best to keep those beans inside our garden."

The Baker's son was a British boy named Peter who was a fine young lad and was not interested in baking, but in studying textbooks. The boy wished to become a school teacher when he grew up and not follow his father's profession. Peter was about to learn however that baking would soon be all he wanted to on Earth.


	2. Love Blossom

Peter flipped through the pages of his book. He wanted to find a new challenging math problem. He needed some new entertainment on this rainy day. He looked. He looked again. Finally, at Page 425 he found a good challenging one. It Read:

_X_=845+57-78 Find the _x_

After solving it out, he wanted to quiz other people to help with his studying. He quizzed his father, his mother, and his brother. Finally he asked his father if he could visit the witch next door. His father replied with a simple nod.

"Thanks dad", Peter said, practically glowing with excitement. He bounded out the door covering his book with his brown coat to protect it from the rain. He knocked on the door of the luxurious house. The wooden door creaked open but there was nobody behind it. Instead he saw Hazel, sitting on a chair holding a piece of papyrus paper in her hands and weeping onto it.

"What do you want" the Hazel asked. Peter asked, "What's the matter?"

"My mother just left. She just walked out the door and said she wouldn't be back in the while. Those were the last words I heard my Daddy said before he went to the mountains. I know she'll never be back."

"No you don't," Peter said sitting next to the poor girl. "She'll be back real soon I'll bet."

"No she won't", Hazel wept, "I found this note under her bed." She gave Peter the soggy note from all her tears. He looked over it.

The note said:

Dear Hazel,

If you are reading this note then you know too much. I have gone off to the mountains. They want me to attend an important meeting on witchery. I have been drafted to a private society for witches over 56 and seeing how my 56th birthday is in two weeks, I was required to go. I may never see you again, so remember the true importance of the witchcraft I have taught you.

Love you forever,

Mother

"I'm sorry", Peter said. Trying to lighten the subject he asked Hazel, "I came over here to study for my math test coming up. I was wondering if I could quiz you and you could quiz me."

"Math…Quiz?" Hazel gazed at him confused.

"You don't go to school do you?" he asked.

"My mother has homeschooled me my whole life." Hazel replied.

"I suppose witches don't do math and that sort of stuff." Peter said. "Here, I'll help you. Take a wild guess at this problem!" He opened his book to the problem he had solved earlier and pointed to it.

She read the problem. _Find the x _she thought. Then she pointed to the x and said, "It's right there."

She stood tall and smiled proudly that she had solved her very first math problem. Peter had been giving her an easy one. However Peter started laughing.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"Find the value of the_ x_ not the_ x_ itself", laughing between every word. After he calmed down he started to explain the problem to her. "You see, the _x _is a variable. That means the number that it represents can only be revealed after the rest of the problem is solved." He explained more of the problem and some other problems in his 500 page textbook. She soon discovered that math was fun and that Peter was fun to be around. Soon his mother came over and told Peter it was time for supper.

They visited each other often and soon became the closest of friends and a little more than friends perhaps. One time Peter invited Hazel over to try some of the baked goods his father made. Hazel looked at the disc with brown dots in it. They called it a chocolate chip cookie. It looked like a mumps victim to her. She tasted it. It was much more delicious than she thought it would be. She had soon wolfed it down and wanted another.

"These are so good." Hazel said with cookie crumbs in her mouth."I wish I could be a baker when I grew up."

At that moment, something clicked in Peter's brain. He was going to be a baker when he grew up. And so was Hazel. Well, at least a Baker's Wife.


	3. Betrayal

Hazel looked at the picture of Peter in the corner of her room. She thought about him a lot these days. Here she was six years after she had started dating him. He truly was an amazing person. Which filled her with regret more. She had truly not even said Hi to him in two years. She had been so busy keeping her promise to her mother. She had been making sure her mother's legacy remained. She wished she could have spent those two years with him. He probably would've proposed by then. She looked over at the picture. God, she missed him. It was finally settled. She would visit him that night. She walked downstairs when she heard a knock on the door. She opened the door to find the postal man.

"I have a special delivery for a Miss Hazel Bloomington." The mailman said.

"That would be me", replied Hazel. He handed her the note. It said it was from Peter. "Thank you", Hazel said and she shut the door. As she opened it, she wondered why he had sent her a letter when he lived right next door.

Dear Hazel,

I am in the neighboring kingdom with my parents. We are preparing for my upcoming wedding. I wanted to invite you. I have a lovely fiancé named Rosemary that I thought you would like to meet.

XOXOXO,

Peter

A tear rolled down her cheek, onto her luscious blue locks and on to the floor. He was getting married!? So much for visiting him tonight. What was she going to do? Well she wasn't going to that wedding. That's for sure. She would just have to stay home.

Peter looked around. He didn't see Hazel. Maybe she'd changed a lot since he last saw her. Maybe she was running late. But Rosemary was going to come out in 5 minutes and Hazel still wasn't there. He waited. The five minutes seemed so long. Finally he saw Rosemary come out. She looked beautiful in her gown. But where was Hazel. They continued the wedding ceremony. It almost completely got his thoughts off Hazel. But a week later, when they were riding home, a thought struck him. An adolescent thought. A crazy, adolescent thought that he had clung onto for four years.

He had seen her eat the chocolate chip cookie. She had said she wanted to be a baker when she grew up.

_She will be a baker. Well at least a Baker's wife._

He had shared that thought with her when they started dating. And now he had invited her to his wedding with Rosemary.

_She must think I'm a traitor, _he thought, _She must think of this as a betrayal_


	4. Greens, Greens, and Nothing but Greens

Hazel tossed and turned. She couldn't get to sleep. Maybe it was the fact that Peter and Rosemary were expecting _another _child. Their first one was only two years old. Now they were having another one! She tried to go back to sleep but she just couldn't. She got out of bed and went to her closet. Looking at her newest blue gown, she decided to try it on. She put it on over her long black nightgown, as she looked at herself in her body-length mirror. She then heard a sudden thud from outside.

She looked out her window and gasped. What she saw was Peter with a large brown bag. She hurried downstairs and quietly snuck out the back door and hid behind her nectarine tree. A blue tear cascaded down her cheek. He was going through her greens. Her parsley! Peppers! Cabbages! Celery! He was rooting through her rutabaga, and ripping up her rampions. Her Favorite!

He was stuffing everything in his bag. He finally came over to the nectarines. As he reached out for one, Hazel jumped out of the leaves. He fell to the ground, shock in his eyes.

"Well, well, look at who came back after all these years", Hazel chuckled.

Peter's bottom lip was quivering. He looked like he was about to cry.

"I would love to know what you collect. What's in the bag?" Hazel asked mockingly.

"Please show mercy", Peter finally spoke out. "My wife was very ill and I wanted some herbs to help her heal in time for when the baby comes."

Hazel thought about the scenario for a moment. She then replied, "In that case, I am willing to make a deal with you. If you give me the child when he or she is born, then I will let you take away as much rampion as you like. Think about it. Either way you'll lose the child. If your wife is sick during childbirth the baby will die."  
>He thought about it for a minute. Then he shook Hazel's hand and said, "We'll call it square."<p>

Hazel was very pleased with herself. She smiled at the thought of being the "mother" of Peter's child. Turning her head, she saw him crawl back over the wall. He landed with another thud on the other side. Then all of the sudden dark clouds rolled in. Lightning crashed. The lightning spiraled from the clouds straight towards her.

She had heard stories about lightning victims. They didn't seem too pleasant. Then, the lightning struck, struck her right in the chest. But it didn't hurt her. Instead it seemed to wrap around her. Wind tore violently around her. Her hair whipped around her face. She held onto a branch of the tree. She looked down at her hand. It was shriveled with wrinkles, and her nails were long and grimy. She looked at the hair blowing around in her face. It was wiry and thin and grey! Grey hair!

A voice echoed in her mind.

_You and all your descendants will be punished with the curse of ugliness if those beans were ever taken beyond the garden. _

He couldn't have. She huddled over now with a slight hunch in her back. She looked at her Bean vine. The vine was there but the little orange beans were not. She would get back at him. If she got a curse, he would get a curse. She had a good one in mind. A really great, wicked, plan if she could only time it right. But she could. And she definitely would.


	5. Little Rapunzel

Hazel yawned, and pulling herself out of bed, she gazed out her window. She saw Peter and his wife with a small baby girl in their arms. She smiled. The big day has come. She rushed out of bed. Neither Peter nor his wife had seen her since he had taken her beans. She flew downstairs and threw open her doors. She zipped towards the Bakery. She knocked on the door.

Inside, Peter heard the knock.

"Who might that be?" asked Rosemary.

"It's the witch from next door", Peter gulped.

Hazel knocked again. Still no answer. Oh well, she had always had a flair for the dramatic. With a wave of her hand, the door crashed into the house. Peter and Rosemary shrieked.

"I'll be taking that little child", Hazel slinked over to the bed.

"Who are you?" asked Peter.

"Surely, you remember?"

"Hazel?" Peter asked with a look of pure horror on his face.

"Your precious sticky fingers somehow made their way towards my beans. This is the result of it", Hazel laughed. "On a serious note, we did make a bargain."

"Don't you dare take away the baby!" Peter barked.

"Then you leave me no choice." Hazel reached out a leathered hand and shot a blast of smoke and lightning into the air. It covered the house. "From this day forth Peter's family tree will turn barren. And no one, nor his or daughter shall ever have a child!"  
>"No!" Rosemary shrieked, falling back into the bed.<p>

"Rosemary!" Peter ran to her side grabbing her cold hand. Hazel grabbed the little child from her now dead mother's arms and started to walk out the door. "How could you do this?" Peter cried, "You used to be so fun and happy. Now you're cold and cruel and ruthless…"

"ENOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUGH!" Hazel shouted, waving her cape and disappearing in whirlwind.

Hazel ran further into the woods. She remembered the tower that her mother had taken her to. It was a secret tower, in the deepest part of the woods. Legend had it that a sleeping beauty had once lived there, but no prince who attempted to get to her would be blinded by a tall thorn bush that guarded the tower. Hazel would raise her daughter here. Safe from all the cruelties of the world. Safe from men, safe from wolves, safe from harshness and lies and thievery and the seven deadly sins of the world. She had remembered the Latin name for the rampions that Peter (ugh) had stolen. It was called Rapunzel. That would be the little girl's name. Her little Rapunzel.


End file.
